 Today we are going to talk about group talks and lectures. Group talk is a form of a communication that involves sharing thoughts, feelings and ideas with multiple people. Group talk is less stressful as comparative to one-on-one communication because when you are talking in a group, the attention is divided between different people. There are certain skills that are required to talk in a group. The first one is that you need an ability to share your ideas and you need an ability to share your ideas openly yet in a very non-threatening way. You also need to have this ability to listen to others carefully because when you are in a group and talking to each other and you are not paying attention and you are not listening to others, it gives an idea that you are not paying attention to what others has to say. You also need to have this ability to ask questions in order to clarify if something is not easy to understand for you. Other than that, you also need to be more empathetic towards others and to see their body language and their body cues if they are giving another idea through their body language. Apart from that, you need this ability and initiative that you can start a conversation and more in a conversational way. On the other hand, public talk is also a form of communication which requires communicating between different organization, groups or individuals in order to share information. Public talks are more center focused as compared to group talks because group talks are more conversational. They are more in a dialogue form where two or more than two people are required to talk to each other. But on the other hand, public talk is only center focused because there is only one person who is talking. The next one is lecture. Lecture is a form of an oral presentation in which the intention is to impart knowledge or information to a larger audience and it is mostly given by college professors but sometimes it can also be given by public ministers or politicians or some businessmen. The idea of a lecture is to convey critical information or background or history or some critical information required on a certain subject. When it comes to group talks and lectures, there is a difference between both in terms of its audience, its purpose, level of interactivity. Now we are going to see the difference between group talk and lectures in terms of all these parameters. When it comes to audience, there is a difference between group and lectures. In group talks, the audience number is limited and it can happen in a more informal setting. On the other hand, the audience for lectures are greater in number. The group talks and the audience number can be from handful people to the dozens and on the other hand when it comes to lectures, we can conduct lectures in halls, in conference halls where greater number of people can sit and just listen to the speaker. When it comes to the purpose, group talks are more interactive in nature. On the other hand, lectures are more structured and it has a proper aim to deliver. The intention of a group talk maybe is to convey or to share experience or to talk about on a subject that is interest for mutual people, for a smaller community. On the other hand, lecture is delivered by experts on a subject either to inform or to persuade their readers or to entertain them and it has a proper agenda and aim at end and it is in a proper structured format that follows a presentation style. When it comes to the format, there is a difference between group talks and lectures. Group talks are more informal and they allows a conversational tone. On the other hand, lectures are more closely and structured and they require a proper presentation with proper beginning, middle and end. Both requires you can use visual aids in both public talks and group talks and lectures but group talks are happened in more smaller setting where you are sitting in a workshop or in a round table conference. You can use visual aids to enhance your point of view but in public talk, in lectures, you need to use proper presentation style with proper visual aids. You can allow question and answer but this is going to happen at the end of the lecture. When it comes to interactivity, both are different in their respective fields. Group talks allows more interaction and they encourage participants to engage with each other and to talk with each other to discuss things and to question an answer but on the other hand, when it comes to the lectures, it is more speaker focused because the intention is to give or impart knowledge rather than to engage in a discussion. So, they allow for a little bit question and answer session at the end but the focus is on the speaker. When it comes to settings, group talks can occur in various settings. For example, in smaller conference rooms, it can happen in workshops. On the other hand, when it comes to lectures, we require larger audience. So, we need lecture theaters, auditoriums or bigger conference hall to conduct a lecture. If we summarize what we have gone so far, then we can say that group talk is more informal in nature. The number of audience is smaller. It is more interactive and engaging and in which the audience has to interact with each other and openly involve in the discussion. On the other hand, the lectures, they are more formal and they are structured presentation. The number of audience is larger and it is one communication in which the only person is there to speak and the purpose is to impart information or to convey or to give knowledge. There are few tips that you can keep in mind when you are talking in a group. The first thing is that you need to know your audience. What does it mean is that you can try to understand what, from what background they are coming, what kind of a belief set they have, from which culture they are coming from because it will help you to understand their perspective, their point of view and their perceptions. Other than this, try to be interactive and try to be conversational with each other because the purpose of a group talk is to indulge in a conversation where you impart the ideas and share ideas. Conversational means that you need to use a language that is easy to understand and do not use jargons, which makes it difficult for others. Try to use visual aids because when you are making a point and if you use visual aid, it makes a striking impact on the listeners. Time management is very important when you are talking in a group and encourage participant because there are people in front of you and if you encourage them to participate, there are few people who are introvert, who are not very comfortable with speaking. So, if you encourage them, they can share or they can indulge in a conversation that is helpful for everyone. There are few tips when you are going to conduct a lecture. The first one is that it should have to be proper structured, which means you have to practice it before delivering, which means that it must have a proper beginning, middle and end. Other than this, the beginning of your lecture is very important. It should be very engaging and it makes a striking point of view. Your delivery should be very confident, so you need to practice beforehand. Apart from this, what you can do is you can relate your personal experiences with the topic you are talking about. You need to show empathy towards your listeners and you can also encourage participant by asking question and answer at the end of a lecture. So, from all this which we talked about today, we can say that to summarize it up, we can say that group talks in public lectures are forms of oral communication, but both are different in terms when it comes to the format, in terms of audience, in terms of setting and in terms of level of interactivity. But there are few things which are similar to both, which means when you are a speaker, when you are in a mode of communication, you need to be more concerned towards your listeners and give what always makes a positive impact in a greater community.